[1]Manjari Chaturvedi
In continuation to the Ibaadat Festival Series, started in 2012, Sufi Kathak Foundation recently organised Ras Rang, an annual festival of qawwali music. Organised by Manjari Chaturvedi, creator and only performer of Sufi Kathak in the world, the festival aims to revive the culture of qawwali music.
In an attempt to preserve the age-old tradition of qawwals, Manjari says that they plan to start a Qawwali institute soon. “Youngsters are not interested in taking up this dying art form because of lack of money and platforms to perform. I believe an institute will help in bringing in young talent into the world of qawwali,” says Majari, who intends to open the institute in UP since most of the qawwals are from smaller town of Uttar Pradesh. The organisation has so far been digitising and restoring records of qawwalis to create a database of musicians.
The festival was organised on Saturday at Nirmal Bhartia School where artists like Ahmed Khan Warsi, Haider Baksh and Group from Lucknow participated.
Links:
[1] http://archive.asianage.com/manjari-chaturvedi-000